Brain Drain Would Kill The Ghanaian Elite Football League
By Gariba Raubil
SUNYANI
0241262225
I define Brain drain in football as the large-scale mass departure of significant number of soccer players and officials with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons frequently consist of two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals or professionals. In terms of countries, the reasons may be social environment in the departing countries such as inadequate opportunities, economic gloominess, not-so-good wellbeing, poor sporting infrastructure, and absence of astute football management and what of you and in the host countries the reasons are likely to be rich opportunities, developed economy, better living conditions, quality sporting infrastructure and the rest. In terms of individual reasons, there are ambition for an improved career, better salary, and taking a new challenge in a different league system.
I am very sure by now you might have heard that one of the recent big hitters in the Ghanaian Premier League has one leg outside Ghana. Yes, I am talking about the player who scored twenty league goals for his club in the 2012/13 season and became Ghana’s “Meilleur Buteur”. What even makes his winning of the top goal scorer award is that he completed his goals by enriching them with a hat rick, a feat that every striker would be proud of. He is adjudged as the Premier league player of the year by the Sports Writers Association of Ghana. He was very instrumental in the surprise resurgence of his club that saw them finish at the 5th position of the 2012/13 season, a placement that very few people including myself never thought they would achieve on the account of their deplorable starting performance. I am talking of Mahatma Otto. And I ask this question. Who would not like to watch Mahatma Otto play football in Ghana in the next season? The 2013/14 season will be more interesting to watch if the local fans will have the opportunity to watch the best talents in their country. The flight of players away from the Ghana premier league is in recent years an inundation as players continue to leave for greener pastures. What makes it somehow a shame is that most of the players are being attracted by a sister African soccer league. In a period of two years about six Ghanaian talents in the likes of Daniel Nii Adjei,Yaw Frimpong,Gladson Awako,Solomon Asante.Richard Kissi Boateng,Kwasi Acheampong all have joined the premier soccer league in DR.Congo and the latest player to be linked with another move to this same league is Mahatma Otto. At the end of the day the decision is taken by the player’s themselves.Several other players too have been associated with foreign clubs. Is this export going to ever take a different dimension?
However,brain drain of soccer players is very common in developing countries and for that matter in developing football leagues. Poor soccer league organization, chronic infrastructure, low wages serve as reasons why the deluge of Ghanaian soccer talents would end up killing the Ghanaian football league as satellite television among the aforementioned factors keep on winning the preference of football fanatics in Ghana and Africa at large. When satellite Television commenced broadcasting the top European leagues matches in the middle of the 1990’s, it has certainly taken away significant number of football fans from the Ghanaian league centers and it is still taking a toll on the league as people are now preferring watching the world best players on big screens in bars to going to the Ghanaian league center.So what must we do to prevent this?
